Empty Sanctuary
by Chezara
Summary: The White Wolf and The Flower Maiden desperately cling to each other as Death eventually claims them both. Oneshot. Spoiler warning!


Warning: SPOILERS!!!! If you haven't seen the final episode of wolf's Rain, go watch it and THEN read this.

This is just a little something I've been thinking about doing for a while. It's what Kiba may have seen through his eyes as he died with Cheza. I cried while writing it...

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* * *

_****_'Cheza...'_**

The pain behind Kiba's eyes was blinding. The pounding ache in his skull put pressure behind his brain and hammered throughout his head. Kiba's sight was blurring and becoming unsteady, making focus practically impossible. His wounds ached and burned, and his freely flowing blood stained his snowy pelt and matted his fur. The white wolf wouldn't last much longer.

His sense of smell was also dulling. All that filled his nostrils now was blood, snow, and the intoxicating scent of Cheza.

Cheza...his Flower Maiden...the thought of her kept him moving when he should have saved his strength. Her scent drove him to the ends of the earth when he should have settled with a mate and started a pack of his own. Her song was what kept him alive when he should have died. Cheza, the Flower Maiden, was his will to live.

"Kiba..." Cheza whispered. Her delicate voice was weak and brittle; she was dying as well. Brown veins stretched up her otherwise beautiful face and the rest of her body; she was quickly withering. Her fingers lengthened and cracked as she reached out to the chosen wolf.

"Cheza...? Where are you?" Kiba sniffed the air, his fiery golden eyes now almost useless. His ears pricked at the sound of her light breathing, guiding him towards her. He slowly rose to his aching feet and walked the best he could, all the while trailing blood through the snow. He fell pitifully into her weak arms, his strength drained from the war with Darcia. His bloody pelt smeared crimson onto her pale porcelain flesh.

"The ice is spreading fast now. The world will freeze over. Soon, this one will dissappear."

**_'No...this can't be the end...not yet.'_**

"This one is a forged Hanabito. This is not this one's true form." Cheza admitted, stroking the bloodied fur of Kiba's head.

"Your true form?" He didn't understand. He could recognize a wolf hiding in the guise of a human, so why didn't he see through Cheza's illusion? So all this time, she was _only a **flower**_...?

"Now, this one can become..." She was withering quickly, becoming weaker by the second.

"Cheza..." Kiba couldn't stand to hear what she was saying. He didn't want her to say that she was dying, even though he knew it was true. Her world was ending, and taking his down with it.

"The world will close up for a while, and we will be apart from one another."

**_'No...I don't want to be away from you...my flower...don't go...'_**

If Death claimed his Flower, he would have no reason to live.

"What should I do? I don't have anything left to protect." Protecting those who were weaker than him was in Kiba's blood. Having nothing to protect was having no life, no purpose.

"Kiba, because you protected this one, the flowers will return and bloom once more. So when the world is reborn, and Paradise opens, we will meet again. This one will be waiting for you. Find this one. And this time, the Paradise you hoped for will be..."

Cheza's poisonous green blood flowed from her wounds, as did the Chosen wolf's. Their streams of liquid life crossed and twined together, as though their destiny to unite existed even within their blood.

**_'No...please, Cheza...please don't die. You're all I have left...'_** He whimpered.

Cheza clung to Kiba desperately, raking her nails down his back, letting streams of blood down his back, struggling to refuse Death and stay with her wolf.

However, it was useless. Death is a predator that no one can escape, even with the chosen wolf as a guardian.

A final tear rolled down her face and her body suddenly disenigrated into thousands of seeds, spilling from Kiba's arms and rolling onto the permafrost.

His flower was dead.

At first, Kiba did nothing. Losing Cheza was losing everything that was precious to him. Cheza was what had brought his new pack together. Her scent lead Toboe, Tsume, Hige, Blue to the city dome and gave them the chance to meet. And finding the Flower Maiden gave him gave Kiba a true sense of pride considering he accomplished what no other wolf had ever done in his lifetime.

And now she was dead.

That was it...everything he had strived for...everything he had _lived_ for...the years of his life spent searching for the Legend of Paradise...gone.

Kiba forced back tears of defeat as he shook his head in disbelief.

**_'No...Cheza...Toboe...Hige...Blue...Tsume...'_** He wished for them to live again. To just get up and shake the falling snow from their pelts and their fatal wounds to be mended by the red moon's light. And then together, they'd run to the gates of Paradise.

But that was a wish that would never be granted.

He clutched Cheza's bloody cloth, his knuckles turning white.

**_'Come back...'_**

But he knew they couldn't. He'd never again hear their howls, run with them on the endless nights, or hunt together as a pack. Their souls were lost, irretrievable even for the Shaman who had saved his own from the Garden of Eternity.

He screamed into the darkness in relinquish, loathing himself for his own failure.

**_'It's my fault...I failed them...my friends lost their lives...I shed so much blood...and for nothing...'_**

So close...he was so close...only steps away from the entrance to Paradise, and he had lost everything. He had no one to share his entitled Heaven with, so therefore it's sanctuary was empty.

**_'Everyone's dead...there's nothing left...if no one else I care for will be there waiting...then it's not the Paradise I've fought so hard to reach...'_**

Kiba stood shakily with what little strength he had and gently picked up Cheza **_-_** in her _true form **-**_ a small white withered flower. He carefully carried her between his teeth a short distance and collasped into the powdery snow. He was so cold...so weak...so..._tired_...

**_'I'm sorry, Cheza...I couldn't protect you...I couldn't...protect anyone...'_**

He released Cheza from his jaws.

**_'I failed...I let everyone die...I don't deserve Paradise...'_**

Memories of his pack shimmered in his mind. He saw Tsume snapping his fangs at him as they battled in the city, blood streaking the air; Toboe struggling to keep up with him and the older wolves, still just a pup and not used to such long treks; Hige talking to him behind the bars of the cage in the laboratory, that smug but friendly smile on his face; Blue running towards her injured mate, sapphire eyes gleaming with sheer joy at the sight of the sandy pelted wolf.

His last memory was all of them running at his side, their paws hammering the earth as they searched for his Flower Maiden.

Kiba's eyes of golden fire slowly closed, extinguishing his flame of determination and desire for Heaven on earth.

Although he didn't see it, Cheza's countless seeds spung to life and bloomed all around him, their sweet aroma calming him and putting his restless soul at ease.

The thick ice beneath him cracked, veining the earth's frozen surface. As he sank into the freezing waters, he opened his eyes one last time and watched the blood of the moon fade away as its natural silver luster regained its rightful place.

And that was the last thing he saw, as he closed his eyes forever.


End file.
